Le Bien Qui Fait Mal
by Sir Soz
Summary: "Underneath the trees, yellow light shining through and giving everything the appearance of a dream, they'd practised kissing. For boys, her friend had laughed when Alison had recoiled in what was horror (yes, horror, yes that was it). It doesn't mean anything, Ali. Don't be a stick in the mud."


I've had this mostly completed a few days after Season One ended, but after Episode 9 of the new season came out I felt this would be appropriate to finish off. Hope you enjoy, and remember that feedback is literal crack to me.

When Alison had been so much younger, small and frumpy and just starting high school, she had had a friend. She can't even remember her name, it was so long ago. She can remember her friend had the prettiest lips she'd ever seen outside of a magazine. They were pink and full, and Alison was so jealous that she stole her lip gloss once, but gave it back almost immediately after, feeling guilty as sin. _Sin_, her mother said as she told her off for it from over the kitchen table, her father passed out on the couch. _This was sinful, that was sinful, _you_ are sinful._

One day, after she and her friend had made up for her theft, they had wandered off to the park to watch the swans drift across the clear water. They'd sat under a large tree, and kept flicking the fat green leaves at each other and giggling. They were so young, so innocent.

Underneath the trees, yellow light shining through and giving everything the appearance of a dream, they'd practised kissing. _For boys_, her friend had laughed when Alison had recoiled in what was horror (yes, horror, yes that was it). _It doesn't mean anything, Ali. Don't be a stick in the mud._

They'd started off clumsy, sloppy, but they'd soon got the hang of it. Well, her friend did, she kept finding a way to bang her nose against every conceivable part of her friend's face. It was embarrassing, and in a bid to be adventurous, to prove her friend wrong, she'd started kissing back more strongly, hands beginning to relax from where they had lain for the past ten minutes, frozen like a gargoyle.

Of course, knowing her luck, she'd somehow managed to bite her friend's lip, and they fell apart to the sound of a shrill yelp and a swarm of apologies. Her friend had turned to her then, and smiled at her, previously white teeth stained red with blood, lip torn open to the shape of a bite mark. It had stirred something in her, something that she'd look back at her house later, and realise was something bad, something dirty, and probably sinful too. Or something. The general idea was that it was bad, bad bad bad, and she could never do it again. Alison avoided her friend from then on, dodged her calls and her face, and eventually she stopped trying to make contact. It was for the best. She couldn't let that happen again. It was for the best. It _was_.

But in that moment, with the summer sun beating down on her friend's busted lip in a way that was just so _interesting_, when her friend had giggled _want to try again Cujo? __**, **_Alison wasn't thinking about what her mother would think, what her friends would think if they ever found this out. Her only thought was, _shamefully_, how could she make her friend yelp like that again? And, after the mouths had crashed together, hands turning into fists at her side and her tongue swiping over a little pool of blood in the corner of her mouth, she'd later be glad that no one could hear her terribly unladylike moan.

College had been an interesting experience. Massage was an obvious choice, an _"acceptable feminine occupation"_, so said her mother as she cleared away the half full bottles by the couch, trying her best to avoid waking her father up. But, even though she'd felt a little press-ganged into trying out for that particular course, she'd come to enjoy it. The person beneath you, lying on the soft table that always smelled of antiseptic, depended on you. Needed you to press softly enough to not hurt, but hard enough to actually make you feel it. You could play someone's body like an instrument if you balanced that line well enough, and she found herself looking forward to it between her other lessons, waiting impatiently, even as she dreaded it, for the taboo chance to walk that tightrope again. Not that falling off wasn't a big part of she liked it, but the more she progressed, the less she could realistically blame them on accidents. Happy little accidents. But then she'd met Donnie, sweet athletic Donnie, and then all of a sudden there was a ring on her finger and in each hand she had a little black haired baby, swaddled in blue and pink blankets. She had to look after them, so no more massages. No more tightropes, no more _buzz_, just a husband who grew steadily larger and children who needed a normal mother. She'd die before she made them see her as an abnormal, a degenerate. So she hid herself, hid behind the role of dutiful mother, devoted wife, and that had lasted. For a while.

But then clones happened. Clones, as if she didn't have enough to deal with. Alison looked at these other women, and wondered whether they were different too, different the way she was. It would've been nice for someone to understand, maybe even talk to. But of course, it didn't turn out that way. Cosima was a druggie from San Francisco, and even though she had male and female lovers, she seemed completely normal. Not like her at all. Beth was a bit more like her, she thought. Beth knew that you had to put others first in life, clamp yourself down so you didn't cause problems to the ones you loved. But just as she thought that Beth could understand, could help her deal with these urges, the fact that every time she (accidentally) bit her lip open while stressed, and the second of silence and calm as looked at the little red droplets and _smiled _(degenerate), Beth was dead, and she was replaced by this lesser copy, this thug, who smacked her when she was only her job, only protecting her family. In her wake followed an actual psycho killer, and she tried her best not to think about what that meant for her.

Then there was Donnie. Stupid, farting, eating Donnie. She thought he was her monitor, was certain of it, and he ignored her, _demeaned_ her. She'd always despised being talked down to, her mother and her father and her husband, all one great chimera of derision, and in no time at all there was a golf club in her hand, and then it was bouncing off one of those big, stupid faces with a smack that reverberated through her skin, through her bones, and now her blood was on _fire_ and she had to throw the golf club away from herself before she did more.

Once again, just like in college, the shame soon followed, the damn endless cycle of happiness and shame. Her husband was a slob, but he didn't deserve a beating. He didn't, but she did deserve answers. So she put a helmet of him to protect his already damaged head and got him to the bottom of the stairs in the safest and most painless way possible. She made sure of it. She did.

She duct taped him to the chair, and she had to resist adding more, more and more until he couldn't move an inch. She only had a small amount left, and she needed some more to fix Gemma's backpack. Then there was glue on his chest, he was screaming, and she felt so good, so _awake_, but also so guilty, and...then she couldn't feel anything, because she was dumping booze down her throat so fast it barely touched the sides of her throat, and this was, while not as immediately gratifying as her earlier actions, it did manage to make her feel empty, hollow her out for a little while. She thinks she passed out while looking in a mirror, and thinking about how that was _funny_, and wondering why she hadn't tried this before. This could be manageable. It could.

She apologised to Donnie. He wasn't her monitor, he was just her husband. She was a bad wife, a bad mother to her children. Things needed to change. She needed to. Couples counselling was dull, trust exercises and talks where people moved their mouths but nothing worthwhile came out, and no alcohol allowed. She was feeling more and more exposed, like a scab picked carelessly off a cut, and she felt herself holding her hands in fists instead of letting them do what she wanted, _needed_. She'd woken up, and it felt brilliantly terrible.

Chad had been...an experience. Donnie had previously been the only man she'd ever slept with, caring and strong and...dependable. She hadn't talked about her thoughts on what she might like to include in the bedroom of course, not that he'd ever asked. But he'd been good enough, brought her to a few great orgasms and to a lot of satisfactory ones. And, well, what more could you ask from a husband, realistically?

But with Chad, the weed was in her system, and he was looking at her with eyes that had the slightest tinge of fear in them, and god, who knew _that'd_ be a turn on. But the guilt was slow now, dulled to sleep, and so she felt only the slightest hint of shame as she marked him with her teeth, turning his neck and collarbones red as his hands fumbled at her jacket, spiting Aynsley in the best way. That would come later, of course. More, when she realised that for a split second(s) she hadn't been on top of Chad, but...someone else. Who it was (lipgloss and blonde hair) was _not important_. Just...ignore it and it'll go away, that's what they said. Ha, ha.

Aynsley had been different. The guilt didn't come till later this time. She watched her monitor choke, the light leave her eyes and her hands stop thrashing, and then she quickly hurried out, her body thrumming so distractingly that she almost forgot to wipe the button in the garage. She managed to get back to her house, and hope, hope so hard that this was it, that the cycle wouldn't start again, when, predictably, it hit her like a ton of bricks. She felt like covering her eyes, pretending it didn't happen, going upstairs and hiding under her bed like a child again, scared of Daddy and Mommy shouting. Aynesly was dead, her best friend for so long, and she had done it. She may not have put her hands around her throat and squeezed (move past that thought), but she might as well have. She was a murderer. Her children had a mother for a murderer. In her panic, she wondered if she got caught, what would happen to her kids? They'd probably be staying with Donnie, or worse, with her mother. She could potentially have disrupted her children's lives. She was a monster, a monster, and a, a piece of _shit_. She was, she was.

The gun on the table stared her down, its unblinking gaze anchoring her to this moment. Her hand twitched towards it, but instead of grabbing cool metal, and making everything _peaceful_, she pushed it off the table. She couldn't afford this temptation in her life at the moment. And she wasn't going to leave her children without a mother. No way.

Donnie saw her crying, and she had to push herself down, feelings squashed under a lifetime of care. When he went on his jog, Alison looked at the police cars outside, and took a swig from a mini bottle of vodka she had in her pocket. It helped, a little. She wondered how many parts of a little would end up making up a whole. Well, she thought as she rooted inside one of her (special) drawers, there was only one way to find out. This would help. It would.

The play was a disaster. She found out Aynsley wasn't her monitor, so of course she had to take some of her happy (hahaha) pills, to push back those bad thoughts. And Donnie, stupid, cruel, _stupid_ Donnie was her monitor after all, so she needed her vodka to stop from doing something _rash_. She doesn't remember anything from the play itself, but apparently in her drug and drink fuelled haze she'd fell off the stage and broken her arm. As she shouted at the woman, the rehab lady, she couldn't help wishing that she'd landed on Donnie, and dashed him beneath her body. Then she might have done something right for once.

Rehab helped, in a way. It was full of people who, in a polite sense, she wouldn't like to spend time with (who shaves their armpits in front of others anyway), but without her booze to quell her thoughts, and unable to actually do anything in fear of not being allowed to see her kids, her beautiful babies, she had to learn to confront her own feelings. The group therapy sessions, even if she didn't actually speak at them, helped a little. They provided an adequate background noise while she thought everything through. A week or two of being sober, of thinking clearly and avoiding her mother's words, a mother who obviously didn't care enough to come visit. She thought it through, and realised there was nothing wrong with her. Nothing at all, nothing at all. She shouldn't feel guilt, should she? No, no she shouldn't. It would all be okay. It would. It would.

She'd admitted it to Victor to see his reaction. Felix had been so kind and sweet and understanding-_too_ understanding. She wanted to shock, wanted to know what it felt like to make someone scared, wanted to know if it had the same taste as Aynsley's fear, as Donnie's. Experimentation was needed. And he didn't disappoint, eyes widening in alarm as he smiled fake, fake like her neighbours, probably wondering how best to escape from this situation.

Alison felt guilty, despite her best wishes, for doing that to him. He was shaping up to be a friend, someone who might be dependable, and that was exactly what she needed at the moment. So as a peace offering, she knitted him some gloves. It was some of her best work, different colours and missing a finger, to try and be considerate to his disfigurement. But then he betrayed her, and then he was unconscious and she was with her children, so she didn't feel too bad about scaring him any more. She was getting better at that, not feeling shame for her thoughts. It couldn't come quick enough.

Donnie was being a rollercoaster ride of craziness at the moment. First he's her monitor, then he's just made a mistake, then he's going to run away. And Alison still loved him, she really did. He was her husband for many years, and she'd felt love for him once, she was sure of it. So when he admitted that he'd killed Leekie, there'd been two main reactions from her. The first one was shock (because, well, _it was Donnie_) and the next was love, pure and distilled in the way sappy love songs and bad rom coms tell you will happen. He'd killed for her, he knew what it felt like to feel shame for what you did, he _understood_. No one had ever understood her before.

But he got it, he felt the tidal wave of regret that threatened to pull you under, turn you into someone you never wanted to be. So, when they were discussing where to hide the body (the fact that she could even say this out loud, finally share her thoughts with someone she had a connection with on this level, felt immensely satisfying), and when Donnie had been threatening Victor, well, suffice it to say she'd glad she'd found a way to ignore her shame. She ran her hands down her front as Victor shouted over the grove, body feeling like it was plugged into a generator, and thought about how she was very, very glad.

It was the most romantic thing he'd ever done for her. Oh, when they'd just started going out he'd bought her flowers and chocolates, the usual stuff. But this, drawing a heart over the grave of someone he had killed, killed on her behalf, it just made her heart soar, like a bird kicking and screaming its way out of a cage.

So she jumped him, scrambling up his body and wrapping her legs around his back, knowing that he'd keep her upright. Strong, sweet, dirty Donnie. Her cheeks scraped over two days worth of stubble, and the roughness of it sent bolts of electricity arcing through her body, and she felt so alive, so free, so _shameless_.

She told him that she wanted to be nasty. Nasty like her thoughts, nasty like _her_. _Ha_, what would her mother say now, if she could peer round her head?

The freezer seemed like a good place to fuck. It had had a part to play in all this, she might as well show it some love. When she very deliberately turned her back to Donnie, she saw something in his eyes that made her realise that yes, yes, _yes_ she was making the right decision here. And that now that they were both murderers, both stained with abnormality, they could enjoy it together. His hands took a hold of her hips, and the mere sound of his trousers dropping to the floor had her stifling a moan with her hand, teeth digging into the soft, stained skin of her hand. _Yes_, she thought as she worked himself inside her. Yes, they could make this work. Yes, she could be herself. Yes, she could be happy.

The title comes from a song with the same name, by a little-known musician called Mozart. It means "the good thing that hurts". 


End file.
